


The Kettle and the Hearth

by semperama



Category: Star Trek RPF
Genre: Birthday, Character Study, Extended Metaphors, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-26
Updated: 2017-08-26
Packaged: 2018-12-20 04:06:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11912877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/semperama/pseuds/semperama
Summary: Out here, in middle-of-nowhere Scotland, his birthday feels like a secret. It feels exactly how he wanted it to feel, like something just for him.





	The Kettle and the Hearth

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Birthday, Chris Pine! The ideas behind this fic came from rabidchild67, whip-pan, and flyzaminelli. Thanks, guys! <3

It takes some doing, but he manages to finagle his way out of all his obligations for the weekend. They aren’t actually turning on the cameras for another few weeks, so his schedule is mostly full of training anyway, and all it takes is pouting a little in Mark’s direction before Mark caves and puts in a good word with the stunt coordinator.

“I told him you were picking the choreography up quickly enough that you could afford to take a weekend off, which I guess is true,” Mark says, leaning against the wall in Chris’s hotel room and watching Chris pack his things. “Why are you so hellbent on a break though? Normally you’re the one that wants to keep pushing.”

Chris shrugs one shoulder, not looking up. He carefully folds one of his t-shirts and sets it on the growing pile in his overnight bag. “I just want a little time to think,” he says. “I need to get my head clear before shooting starts.”

He lets his voice go rough and clipped and only feels a little bad about it when Mark makes a concerned noise and says, “Of course. I get it, man.” Because yes, Chris could use a weekend away, and yes, he always feels better when he devotes some energy to clearing detritus from his cluttered mind, but the truth is that he doesn’t want to tell the truth. The truth is that he already celebrated with everyone who mattered back in LA before he left—Mark included, of course—and now he wants to take today just for himself. He’s been pushed and pulled in so many directions over the past couple years—and it’s been good, it’s been amazing, but every now and then he gets tired of how few moments belong only to him. This is the only opportunity he’ll have to get away before he’s locked down by months of filming. He needs to take it.

So he hugs Mark on the way out the door, keeping up his weary act, but once he slides behind the wheel of his rented car and shuts the door, he smiles. If he’s lucky, the only people he’ll have to talk to in the next couple days are waiters and the proprietor of the B&B he booked. It already sounds like heaven.

It’s a little drive up the coast, his car breaking through the early morning fog with the ocean at its shoulder. He keeps the radio off in the car and hums under his breath the whole way, his fingers tapping percussion accompaniment against the steering wheel. Already his future obligations are flying out of his mind, leaving him feeling blissfully blank. A nice drive has healing powers. Even better if it’s a drive through countryside this beautiful.

The B&B is a little cottage by the sea, the kind that probably caters to dumb Americans like himself who think the Scotland experience involves rocky coasts and windswept moors and little else. It’s isolated and too small to hold many guests, and that’s exactly what Chris wanted. There’s no parking lot to speak of, so he eases the rental car into the grass beside the gravel drive. When he gets out, no one is rushing to get his bag or to offer bland greetings and empty compliments. The woman who meets him inside the front door is matronly and all-business, and if she recognizes him, she doesn’t let on. She has him write his name in a large, old ledger, then hands him a key on an intricately carved wooden keychain.

“Tea is at two p.m.,” she tells him. “If you need more towels, let us know.”

Chris smiles at her, then follows her directions—down the hallway, up the stairs, to a little room under a sloped ceiling with a large window and a view of the ocean, modest furniture that might be older than he is, a small stone fireplace with a blue tin kettle hanging on a hook. He loves that kettle instantly and wonders how many years its been since anyone made tea with it. He wonders if it belonged to a Scottish matron like the one downstairs, or maybe it was a grizzled old farmer who woke up before the sun and boiled water for his morning coffee. He has to crouch down for a moment and run his fingers over it, feeling its dents and imperfections as if he can read its history like braille. 

“No one celebrates your birthday, do they?” he whispers, sitting back on his heels. “And I’m sure you’ve been more useful than I have.”

With a grunt, he gets to his feet, throws his bag down on the bed, and sits down next to it. When he scoops his phone out of his pocket, he finds he has a happy birthday text from his sister, and he tries to count backwards in time to see whether he should call her, but then he decides against it. She’ll know he got the message—and she already wished him happy birthday anyway. She bought him dinner, because she knows that’s all he ever wants: good food and good company. Other than this text from her and an earlier phone call from his parents, not a single soul has acknowledged what today is. The _Outlaw King_ cast and crew don’t know. His assistant must have forgotten, at least temporarily. Out here, in middle-of-nowhere Scotland, his birthday feels like a secret. It feels exactly how he wanted it to feel, like something just for him.

“Just me and you, Kettle,” he says, sending a grin toward the fireplace before he gets up and walks to the window. He thinks he could stand here and watch the foamy waves crash into the shore until teatime and be perfectly content. He clears his mind. He breathes deep lungfulls of musty air.

And his phone rings.

Reflex is to blame for how quickly he answers and puts it to his ear. If he was smart, he would have left his phone back in the hotel in Glasgow. It’s strange, he thinks, how he lived most of his life without having this thing attached to his hand, and yet it somehow feels dangerous now to go without it for long. It’s a curse.

“Chris?” says the voice in his ear. “Are you there?”

“Zach?”

A sigh down the line, then a chuckle. “Happy birthday, man!”

Chris shakes his head and closes his eyes. Four years ago, Zach didn’t even know when his birthday _was_. Now he’s calling from halfway across the world to repeat a sentiment he expressed before Chris left. Sometimes he thinks he’ll never figure Zach out. He’s not sure if that excites him or frustrates him or both. “Thanks, dude, but you didn’t have to—”

“What’s that? You’re breaking up. Where are you?”

“I’m—” Chris twists and rests his head against the window, as if that will help the signal strength. “I took the weekend off. I’m at a B&B.”

“Alone?”

How could he possibly know that? Chris considers lying, but then realizes he shouldn’t have to. There’s nothing shameful about this. “Yeah. I wanted some Me Time, you know?”

“Mhm,” Zach hums skeptically. “Are you sure about that?”

Chris sighs and turns away from the window again. If they lose the connection, so be it. He suddenly needs to lie down. He sweeps his bag off onto the ground and then flops backward onto the twin bed, which gives an almighty creak under his weight and sends up a cloud of dust motes that swirl through the sunlight streaming in the window. Watching them brings a smile to Chris’s face again, and he forgets to stoke the annoyance that had started to build up at Zach’s prying, instead letting it fade away to contentment. 

“What do you think it’d be like to be a tea kettle?” he asks, closing his eyes.

Silence, for a beat, then an intake of breath. “Chris, are you drunk?”

“Nope.” He emphasizes the P, making it pop. It probably makes him seem like a liar. “I was just thinking…the thing about a kettle is that once it’s done its job, you put it away for a few hours or until the next day, whenever you need it again. It gives you what you want, and then you leave it alone.”

This time the silence stretches out even longer, until Chris thinks they lost their connection after all. But then Zach’s voice returns. “I’m not sure I’m following.”

“I just think it’d be easy for people to assume that a kettle is happiest when you’re boiling water in it, or when you’re pouring the water out, because that’s its purpose, right? But I think it would be happiest once the work is over and it gets to rest until tomorrow. A job well done under its belt. A promise of another job soon. But for now? Rest.”

“You do realize kettles are not sentient?”

“Zach,” he scolds. Because Zach knows what he’s trying to say. Zach always knows what he’s trying to say, sometimes even before he knows it himself.

“Alright,” Zach says, and Chris can hear the way his voice has started to melt around the edges, growing warmer and fonder. This is Chris’s favorite part, the moment when Zach stops trying to pretend he’s above Chris’s bullshit and admits that he loves it. “I get it. I do.”

“Even birthday wishes demand something of me, you know?” Chris says. His friends are the best friends a person could ask for, but being the center of attention is tiring, and it already takes up so much of his life. 

Zach makes a low, understanding sound. “You need some time up on the shelf.”

“Exactly.” That’s it. That’s exactly it. Zach always knows. “Exactly,” he says again, smiling. 

“I’ll leave you alone then. I just wanted you to know I was thinking about you today.”

Slowly, Chris rolls onto his side, so he can see that kettle again, nestled there in the hearth. Maybe it’s not _exactly_ time on the shelf he needs. Maybe his home is somewhere a little different, somewhere warmer. A place—a person—that asks very little of him but helps him do his job when he needs it. 

“You don’t have to leave me alone,” he says quietly. He turns the other way, so he can see the ocean again and the gulls wheeling through the blue sky above. This is it, he thinks. This is exactly how he wanted to spend today. 

“Are you sure?” Zach asks tentatively.

“Completely.” Chris lets his eyes fall shut so he can picture Zach’s smile. “Teatime isn’t for a couple more hours.”


End file.
